| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
Corporal Charles Bailey enlisted at Beverley on 22 Nov 1916 at the age of 33. Allocated to the East Riding Yeomanry he did his training in Skipsea, Fraisthorpe and Bridlington and was then transferred to the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry (KOYLI) and arriving in France on 23 Sep 1917 and promoted to corporal. He was badly wounded on 27 Nov 1917 and hospitalised for over two weeks. He rejoined his unit on 24 Jan 1918 and on 28 Mar 1918, at Gommecourt, on the Somme, he was taken prisoner and sent to Germany, to Parchim POW Camp in Mecklenburg and then to Friedrichsfeld Camp, near Mannheim. He was released on 13 Nov 1918, arriving home on 6 Dec 1918. His army and medical records aledge maltreatment whilst a POW and he received a pension for 1919 only for partial hearing loss. He was awarded the War and Victory Medals.
Charles was born at Shinfield, near Reading, in Berkshire on 6 Sep 1885. His parents, William Isaac and Mary Bailey had seven children. William worked as a blacksmith. Charles went into service, in 1901 he was hall boy at The Grove, Shinfield Green and in 1911 was a valet for Colonel Rouverie of Wetton Lodge at Oakham in Rutland. He married Priscilla Jones on 16 Jul 1911 at Hampstead, London their first child, Kathleen, was born in Paddington on 25 Jun 1912. Their second child, Miriam was born in Beverley on 2 Mar 1915. By this time Charles was living at 32 North Bar Without and was working as a butler at Little Tranby, Seven Corners Lane in Beverley. His employer was Major Clive Wilson DSO, brother of the Conservative MP for Holderness, Arthur Stanley Wilson, and part of the Wilson shipping family of Hull who lived at Tranby Croft. Clive Wilson had served with distinction in the Boer War and also served from 1914-16 before retiring from the army on health grounds. He donated the land for the Hengate Memorial Gardens in Beverley.
After the war Charles returned to the service of Clive Wilson who died, aged 44, in 1921. Charles moved back to London and in 1939 was serving as a butler at 8 Queen’s Gate in Marylebone. His wife died in Paddington in 1934 and his daughters married in London in 1939 and 1940 respectively. Charles himself died in Camberwell in late 1953.
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |